If you are planning to print a book, a work report, a notebook, or a photo album, you may decide to bind it yourself at home. You'll need to know a little bit about basic bookbinding techniques in order to put together a solid finished product.

There are many different binding methods, and the type you choose depends on what you want the outcome of your book to look like.

Ring binding is a simple and cost effective bookbinding technique that is great for when you might have to add more text to your handmade books.

Thermal binding is a sturdy and neat binding method that allows documents to be opened flat. You don't have to have covers for thermal bound books. The way thermal binding is so strong is that it uses plastic strips and heat-fused cloth. There are actual bookbinding machines you can buy to do thermal binding, or you can make your own home bookbinding machine.

Perfect binding is the most common solution for paperback books and novels. You can easily do perfect binding at home using simple crafts materials such as a razor knife, Gorilla glue, and thick paper for the binding. It also helps to have a flat surface you can place the pages on while you do your binding.

Simple bookbinding techniques such as these can be a cost effective solution if you are trying to self publish or don't want to spend scads of money on a publishing company to publish your book.